UK car market records best February in 12 years

UK car registrations reached a 12-year high last month when 83,395 new vehicles were registered, 8.4% up on February 2015. The figures, published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), revealed it was the UK market’s strongest February since 2004. 

The spike has been fuelled by demand from private buyers: there was a 22.6% increase in demand for privately purchased new cars compared with February 2015.

Alternatively-fuelled vehicles saw the fastest growth, however, with 2,221 registrations, representing a 19.9% increase in demand over the same month last year, while petrol and diesel vehicles accounted for 81,174 sales, representing growth of 10.7% and 5.6% respectively.

There was a small decrease of 1.4% in demand for fleet cars, but the sector still accounted for majority (53.1%) of new registrations.

The best-selling car of February was the Ford Fiesta, with 4507 new models registered in the month. It comfortably beat the second best-selling car, the Volkswagen Golf, which sold in 2574 units. Other big sellers included the Nissan Qashqai, Vauxhall Corsa and Ford Focus.

Since the year began, a total of 253,073 car registrations have been recorded, up 4.7% on the same period from the year before. The fastest growing category so far this year is the alternatively-fuelled sector, which has experienced a 28.6% increase; petrol-engined car sales increased by 5.9% and diesel sales were up 2.2%.